In the early 1970s, the Watergate scandal rocked the American administration to its foundations. Two investigative journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, uncovered a conspiracy to cover up abuses of power leading all the way to the Oval Office.

People

The film begins, as did the Watergate affair, with five men breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on 1 June 1972. The DNC was based in the Watergate office, hotel and residential complex in the Foggy Bottom neighbourhood of Washington DC. The late Frank Wills, the real-life security guard who discovered the break-in, played himself in this movie. The story is first taken up by junior journalist Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) as a minor incident. Soon, though, it begins to bloat out in all directions. Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), the executive editor of the Washington Post, brings the more experienced Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) on board to work with him.

Investigation

Woodward and Bernstein begin to dig – and here students of the history of journalism may marvel at how immensely more difficult all this investigative work was in the days before mobile phones and the internet, especially when at one point they have to go through all the hard-copy borrowing records at the Library of Congress by hand. The film shows correctly that their most mysterious source was known as Deep Throat, a high government official turned whistleblower, nicknamed after a notorious pornographic film of the time. The film never reveals who Deep Throat was, but that’s fair enough: his identity was not publicly confirmed for almost 30 years after it was made. In 2005, former FBI associate director Mark Felt finally admitted it had been him.

Woodward meets the informant Deep Throat in a dark car park. The source was years later revealed to have been the FBI’s second-in-command, Mark Felt. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros

Mystery

Thanks to Deep Throat and other sources, Woodward and Bernstein are soon led to the appropriately acronymed Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP, pronounced Creep) and some remarkable characters – including E Howard Hunt, a disillusioned former CIA officer, and FBI agent G Gordon Liddy. Deep Throat is particularly memorable on Liddy. “I was at a party once, and Liddy put his hand over a candle, and he kept it there,” Deep Throat says. “He kept it right in the flame until his flesh was burned. Somebody said, ‘What’s the trick?’ And Liddy said, ‘The trick is not minding.’” Great as this story is, any film buff will instantly spot that it has been borrowed from the opening scenes of Lawrence of Arabia.

The real Carl Bernstein, left, and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post; they won the Pulitzer prize for their Watergate investigation. Photograph: AP

Consequences

As Woodward and Bernstein continue to dig, they uncover extensive evidence of dirty tricks and activity the tricksters call “ratfucking”: stuffing ballot boxes, planting spies in the opposition and running up fake campaign literature. The conspiracy seems to suck in nearly everyone in Washington. In real life, 69 people were indicted as a result of the Watergate investigations, and 48 pleaded or were found guilty. Plus, of course, President Richard M Nixon resigned in disgrace on 9 August 1974 – still a unique event in American history.

Following his resignation, US President Richard Nixon bids farewell to White House staff on 9 August 1974, as his wife Pat and daughter Tricia look on. Photograph: AP

Dialogue

In an iconic scene, Deep Throat tells Woodward and Bernstein to “Follow the money”. So catchy and apt has this phrase proved that it is now often attributed to Felt, even though he never said it. It does not appear in the Washington Post coverage of the affair, nor in Woodward and Bernstein’s book, also called All the President’s Men. In fact, screenwriter William Goldman – who also wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride and Marathon Man – invented the line for the movie.

Verdict

Despite the twists, turns and exceptionally complex detail of the Watergate scandal, All the President’s Men manages to make it both comprehensible and watchable – with a few flashy fictional touches to gussy up the facts.